


The Most Important Pawn In The Game

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 20:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When "Jim from IT" dropped the façade and showed himself as James Moriarty, she should have been scared. Instead she was intrigued. And the intrigue led her to be the biggest pawn in the game...and also the only one who could topple the King.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Important Pawn In The Game

**Author's Note:**

> Another answer to a sherlockmas Afterglow prompt: "Molly/Moriarty: her part in the plan." Never written this ship before, but I hope it works well enough.

There was something about Jim that made her intrigued. Something about him that was different than most of the men she’d been with. Oh, she had figured out he wasn’t exactly what he appeared to be after the first date. He might have thought he was a great actor, but she was very good at seeing the façades that men who dated her would put on, the ones who just wanted to have a shag, sneak out of the bed while she was asleep and forget to call her the next day. Jim wasn’t like that, but she’d had enough experience with those blokes to tell when someone was trying to pull the wool over her eyes.

It was on the third date that she confronted him. Told him she knew he wasn’t really Jim from IT. She wanted to know what his game was, because two dates was fine enough to run a game on her but three was pushing it a bit. If he really was just looking for a shag and an exit he’d put a lot more effort into it than most, but she wanted to know for sure before she kicked him to the curb. She could see him mulling it over in his head, whether he should tell her or not. And then, for a reason he still hadn’t felt like sharing, even after all this time, he told her the truth.

He said his name was James Moriarty, and he was a fan of Sherlock Holmes. For a moment she thought he meant a fan as in “someone else who wanted to get into his pants” but then he elaborated. He was a criminal mastermind, had been since a young age. Most of the crimes Sherlock solved? He was behind them. She should have been horrified, but she wasn’t. She was intrigued. The idea that he had been connected to most of the bodies that had crossed her way was stunning and shocking and interesting. When he dropped the act of goofy “Jim from IT” she could see the real him, the shark in the well cut suit. She was hooked.

She had realized long ago that Sherlock treated her like something he’d stepped in that had a foul odor. That was the whole reason she’d agreed to go out with Jim in the first place: he was nice, he treated her well, and he showed he liked her as a person, and most of all, he wasn’t Sherlock Holmes. Oh, the cruel ways Sherlock treated her had started to anger her, and the words hurt more than she wanted to let on. Whatever crush she had had died a withering death in the aftermath of Sherlock’s utter disdain for her. If she could take him down a peg or two or more, she would.

Jim trusted her with his plan, his “great game,” as he called it. He said she needed to act like she was still infatuated with Sherlock, had to act like “Jim from IT” was the man she had chosen to replace him. She had to let him get an introduction, because even though their lives were intertwined James had never met Sherlock in person before. That was easy enough; Molly knew which lab Sherlock preferred, and she knew he was currently working on a cold case that was occupying all his attention. The plan had gone well enough. James met Sherlock as “Jim from IT” and flirted without really flirting. Oh, Molly knew James wasn’t really gay; the blistering hot sex the night before had proven that. Even as Sherlock was telling her “Jim from IT” was gay she remembered writhing under him as he pounded into her, her nails digging into his back, leaving her mark on his skin. Dangerous sex was the best sex, she realized, and if she could pull off acting like flustered mousy little Molly one more time then it would be fine.

She didn’t expect him to come back to her after that. She thought that had been her bit in the plan, her only part to play. But a week later he knocked on her door. James looked every bit the evil monarch, the criminal kingpin she knew he was. He didn’t say a word to her, just came into her home, backed her up against a wall and had his way with her. He was rough and demanding, and she gave as good as she got. The next morning she was sore but she didn’t care. This kept up for a few months. He convinced her to keep playing her part, the lovesick Molly Hooper who only had eyes for Sherlock Holmes. It was easy, even when Sherlock humiliated her at the Christmas party. Only then did it crack, did she develop a bit of a backbone. She stood up to Sherlock, surprised him. The kiss on the cheek had been genuine, heartfelt. And only then did she begin to reconsider her part in James’s plans.

James didn’t scare her at first. She didn’t fear him at all, though she probably should have. But after Christmas the more she saw the more the fear would grow. Soon she was putting on her own mask when he would show up at her door unannounced. She would give him whatever he wanted, and when he left she would call her mother, call her brothers, just to make sure he hadn’t touched them. The last time, the time before the crown jewels and the kidnapping and the framing of Sherlock Holmes, he didn’t sleep with her. He told her that he was going to give Sherlock an ultimatum. He was going to see the great game to fruition, see where it led. He told her that if Sherlock Holmes disappointed him his friends would die, but she and hers would be safe. He said he had formed an attachment to her he had formed with no one else, and she wouldn’t be a pawn anymore. He had kissed her then, the first time since he stopped being “Jim from IT,” and then he left. She stared at the door for a half hour at that point before she made up her mind: she was going to help Sherlock take him down, however she could, because only then would she feel truly safe.


End file.
